#remotework

After careful consideration, extensive feedback, and realizing that nobody actually wants to commute five days a week, we’re pleased to announce that AT&T has decided to stop pretending 5x RTO makes any sense.

Effective immediately:

• Badge swipes are no longer a measure of productivity.
• Your commute is no longer considered part of your workday.
• Managers may once again manage people based on results.
• Teams may work remotely when the work can be done remotely.
• “Presence” reports will be repurposed for something useful.
• And most importantly, you are no longer required to sit in a building for eight hours to prove you have a job.

Thank you for your patience while we spent several billion dollars and a couple years figuring out what everyone already knew.

The way we work has changed. We should probably change with it.

I really wonder what kind of justifications they’re giving for these long-term remote staff. Are they actually that exceptional? Honestly, you can grow a great engineer from scratch in seven years. Laying off in-office workers while keeping remote ones feels like a deliberate move against company policy.

I am quoting the above words from another post.

As a long-timer at ESG, I have the same question! There are many remote workers based in Dublin, Ireland. Most of them report to the legacy VP and Security Response Director from Symantec.

Why are they protecting these remote workers?

Do we have core customers in Ireland?

Do they possess unique skills that make them irreplaceable?
Skills like programming, reverse engineering, or threat hunting/incident response are common in ESG. We have many engineers in other regions who also possess these skills. And, the VP and the Director have laid off many other office workers who possess those skills.

So how long until all remote positions are gone now that SM is in charge?

“IMO lowering head count for an upcoming merger/sale.”

This was a comment on one thread, and I have heard someone else at work say the same.

Do we think this is what’s going on here?

Are there any possible pros to staying after a sale?

I also heard Abby got fed up with reporting showing that people were not doing as much work from home. (Obviously many of us work better at home and it could have been taken up with those folks. Now everyone’s being punished.

There are "senior leaders" within IT, specifically within the IT S&S org that have been blessed with the ability to be FULL TIME REMOTE.
Why are these "specials" allowed to work from: Florida, Ohio, San Antonio, Houston.
How is it cost effective for all these leaders to spend 3M $ to meet in MN once a month for a week?
Can anyone shed some light on this? Big bright spot light...

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/bank-of-america-ends-back-to-back-remote-days-for-hybrid-staff/ss-AA2a63P6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=6a7f22320f7f47b794912555dfdf4ad7&ei=26

The revised hybrid work policy, including the ban on consecutive remote days and the three-day in-office requirement, will be implemented across all Bank of America offices in the United States. The bank has not disclosed the number of employees who will be affected by this change.

😂😂😂😂 no one is on my floor today. It is so empty! I am going home now - guess I missed the memo that RTO is optional.

DO NOT COMPLY! Bill’s gonna cry!

Could someone please clarify how the “4 good weeks out of 6” policy is measured? If it is tied to the 3‑days‑in‑office requirement, does that mean I would only need to be in the office 12 days over a 6‑week period (4 weeks × 3 days)?

Our team provides 24/7 global support, with all communication conducted electronically and no in‑person interaction required—especially for my role. My workday does not begin at 8 AM nor end at 5 PM, and weekend coverage is a regular part of the schedule. Despite consistently meeting or exceeding performance expectations, I have not received a meaningful salary increase in years, and I cannot afford to live near the office.

For me personally, the 40‑hour monthly commute is unpaid, non‑productive time that could otherwise be spent on work or on personal recovery. As a result, the in‑office requirement feels fundamentally misaligned with the remote, round‑the‑clock nature of the role.

Some people seem to genuinely need the office for their social life. Fine. Go in five days a week. Nobody is stopping you.

But I’m not going to work to make friends. I’m here to do a job. And we’re told loyalty is dead and we’re a market-based company, so let’s be honest about the relationship — I sell my time and expertise, AT&T pays me for it. That’s it.

I prefer working with people who can get their sh-t done without an adult babysitter watching over them. If you can’t perform from home, sitting in an office doesn’t magically make you productive. Now you’ve just added a commute and a day full of distractions.

We’re supposed to be here to work, not recreate a nursing-home social mixer five days a week.

If you need the office, have at it. Just stop making the rest of us pay for your social life.

Has anyone tried to get a medical exemption from RTO? Went to my doctor yesterday and found my blood pressure up 20 points from last year, cholesterol, blood sugar up too. My doc asked if I was under a lot of stress at home or work. Told him about RTO after 10 years of remote work and the stress of the commute. He offered to prescribe remote work. Will USB honor this or will they fight? Do I just give the note to my manager?

I learned that not all MN based remote employees that live within 25 miles of an office will lose their remote status. In some cases, if a team is small and has only a few members that fall into this target group, they will not be required to RTO.
WTH?
I am not in favor of the RTO - but if they are gonna do it, shouldn’t it be EQUITABLE?
Alert to those who got the letter with demand to RTO, there may be discrimination.

Since we follow the lead set by the big banks, is this next for us?

“Bank of America changes up work-from-home policy for all hybrid employees.

Bank of America is enforcing a new post-COVID policy where hybrid-eligible employees are no longer allowed to work remotely on back-to-back days, the Charlotte-based financial giant confirmed Wednesday.

This means Bank of America employees will still have flexibility with three days in the office and two days working from home, but remote days cannot fall on consecutive days, such as Thursday and Friday or Monday and Tuesday.“

Forged Fiber is hiring for remote positions. AT&T’s own careers site currently shows remote and virtual openings.

So apparently remote work is good enough for some parts of the company, but the rest of us need to be in the office five days a week.

Same company. Same technology. Same Teams calls. Same internet. Yet two completely different sets of rules.

I guess they finally figured out that telling candidates they have to report to an office five days a week isn’t exactly a great way to attract talent. But somehow the employees already here are still being told that five-day RTO is essential.

If a job can be done remotely when you’re trying to hire someone, why can’t it be done remotely after you’ve hired them?

This is exactly why people don’t buy the BS argument that 5x RTO is about productivity. It’s a policy choice.

And apparently even AT&T knows when it needs to make a different choice to get the talent it wants. This place is really a joke.

I'm not sure why, but remote jobs have started popping up in my feed again, and not bad ones. I'm tempted to start applying, if I can get the courage. The devil I know still seems better than the devil I don't, but I miss WFH so much that it could push me to go for it.

Her manager asking my friend to move to office to get promotion. She is currently remote.

does it worth relocation?

Do employees that are still remote get considered for Recognition programs. This is in Auto.

Newer to the company have there been any talks of RTO?

Today at the office in Tempe they were going to have a pizza party for the upcoming conversion and everyone both in office and remote declined attending. It is kinda sad and funny.

It is mid week now. Where is the post on virtuals getting notices to relocate to Dallas? It seems every week this insider has so much information about virtuals and the schedule for the follow the work letters.

Have the notices stopped going out to virtuals? Or are all virtuals gone? Or has the guy perpetuating this claim left the business?

I honestly don’t know what to expect at this point. Centene has been great to me, and I can genuinely say that working remotely here has given me the absolute best work/life balance I’ve ever had with a company.

I’ve been able to raise my twins, be present for them, and navigate motherhood without a large village of support, while still making sure my career and work remained a priority. That kind of flexibility has meant more to me than I can really put into words.

If this is it and it’s time for me to move on, I’ll walk away perfectly fine. I’ll always be grateful for what Centene has allowed me to do, not just professionally, but personally. Whatever happens next, I know I’ll be okay. ❤️

So finally the company got the ba--s to be honest and broke the news Wilmington office IS closing June 2027. But the kicker is they are saying everyone “left” would be working remotely. I just don’t see that being true after all they just FIRED tons of people for working remote and some just because of downsizing. I feel in 10 months we will all be told to go home and leave the equipment right here as in HUGE LAY OFF. This su-ks!!!!!

Anyone go through the new reasonable accommodation remote work process with Sedgwick?

They have revamped the form specifically for BNY. This is going to lead to more lawsuits. The form basically implies they will not allow any remote accommodation.

I vaguely recall an RTO mandate going out not long after I left. What actually happened? I can't see them enforcing this when half of us were made remote through COVID

Since RTO has now been in effect for over six months, it feels like that has been long enough for a second round of hand slaps for people who are not adhering like what happened earlier in spring. Have any managers had employees flagged for not coming in enough? Just curious what the current tolerance level is.

(And, just to put it out there, if anyone is ready to pipe up that I, or others, don’t want to work, like the majority of forks opposed to RTO, I am much more productive at home and we’ll never see the value of commuting to sit on zoom calls all day with 95% of my colleagues who are still remote. So please just save your feeble little fingers the effort of typing out a response and scroll on by. K, thx!)

Virtuals run this company and create the rules. All others get yourself to Dallas HQ.

Someone is abusing the original goal of this site by constantly discussing RTO and tracking data.

If you got a job and worried about RTO, then maybe LinkedIn and Reddit is where you should be. To keep discussing RTO here is ridiculous while people worried about overall job security.

This issue needs to be addressed before the new AT&T headquarters in Plano opens.

The Plano campus will have pickleball courts, which means employees may soon be competing against one another on a regular basis. However, virtual employees already have a major advantage: they do not have to spend up to two hours each day commuting to and from the Dallas headquarters.

While the rest of us are sitting in traffic, virtual employees could be using that time to practice their serves, improve their game, and prepare for the Plano courts. By the time the new headquarters opens, employees who have been commuting may be years behind in pickleball development.

This creates a serious fairness issue. The Plano pickleball courts should be a level playing field, but that will not be possible if one group has had significantly more time to practice simply because of where they work.

Leadership needs to act now, before the competitive gap becomes impossible to close. I am requesting that virtual employees return to the office so everyone has the same commuting obligations and the same opportunity to prepare.

We cannot wait until the first Plano pickleball tournament to realize that this problem should have been handled sooner. The integrity of AT&T pickleball is at stake and the time to act is now before it is too late.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/06/verizon-sent-man-a-refurbished-phone-with-mdm-then-deleted-his-data-remotely/

I know some of you were already probably on the edge of retirement so this is not for you.

My questions are for those who cannot yet retire. I’m genuinely curious as these are the things that stopped me from even opening the VSP email.

Do you have another job lined up? If not, why would you take it? How long do you think it will take you to get another job? Are you okay with it not being remote?

How do you feel regarding the fact that the amount you’re shown will be taxed? How long do you think it will last?

I know some days my job can be frustrating but I love it. Outside of a few people who don’t pull their weight, overall it’s really not that bad. I have great leadership and a good team and overall a wonderful department in which my team is a part of. I am paid pretty good for what I do. There is never a boring day. I’ve got over 13 years of knowledge and experience and yet still I learn new things. And I get to do it all at home.

Why on earth would you want to leave? I really want to know. There are some people leaving with VSP I am happy that took it because I don’t have to hold their hand anymore, but others, I am somewhat surprised learning they will voluntarily leave but even more taken aback that some of them don’t have anything else lined up. I don’t know some of them well enough to ask this because I am not close to them and feel like asking is inappropriate.

So, I’m asking it here to those who will maybe answer because I don’t want to be unemployed in this economy. If they want me gone, I’m gonna make them do it to me. No way am I volunteering myself.

Anyone have any insight into if Product will be required for RTO? Me and a few team members are remote and I’m wondering if I should be worried.

The finance folks under Ed Claure are WFM. Why do I have to move when the dead weight ADs with a handful of reports get to WFH? Dead weight dialer managers and collection strategy clowns sitting pretty at home.

This entire argument reads like it was written by someone who still thinks the internet is a fad. It’s not 1997 anymore. Knowledge workers don’t collaborate by walking over to a cubicle. They collaborate across states, countries, and time zones every single day.

It’s fascinating how some leaders still talk about remote work like we’re trying to connect through dial-up and fax machines. We’ve spent years proving that distributed teams can deliver complex work, and somehow we’re still pretending physical proximity is the secret ingredient.

Apparently we’re expected to believe that sitting 20 feet apart magically produces innovation, while sitting 200 miles apart somehow destroys it. Funny…the technology industry seems to have missed that memo.

By this logic, Microsoft Teams has apparently been a very expensive mistake. Someone should probably let Microsoft know their entire business model only works if everyone sits in the same building. 🙃

Since this is a layoff-focused community, it would be really helpful if people could share companies they’ve found to be remote friendly or that don’t limit hiring based on geographic location. I think that information could benefit a lot of us. It doesn’t have to just be banks or financial services.

I’ve been with the bank 15 years and I used to love it so much that I was hoping to retire here but not anymore.

Anyone know if they are expanding RTO still? Has anyone been able to get an exception?

I’m not within the merch org that was called for RTO back in April but wondering if there’s another planned RTO for all remaining remote workers at some point. Has anyone heard anything?

Same day as the town hall, get a call saying how remote workers are getting laid off and their work is moving to India. Probably one of the many rounds of this. How much will need to be offshored before they take US out of the name?

Has any HOP employee worked somewhere other than their home address? Did you ask and they allowed? Did you just do it and nothing happened?

Summarizing all the recent RTO announcements I've seen:

• Merch/PIM/Sourcing: 4 days a week (RTO for remote)
• TES: 2 days a week
• Store Ops: 2 days a week

Any other teams? Please no negativity just posting for visibility.

GK: Remote employees are grandfathered in and we do not have mass layoff.

Lowly employees : But I was just told I either move 2,000 miles to MN or get laid off.

GK: Each department head make their own decisions whether to eliminate remote employees, MC do not have a requirement to eliminate remote employee, we give our department head the discretion.

Lowly employees: you lying #$%$}&%&#&&#&#&}

Gk: Also, if you are unable with your raise and bonus, talk to your manager, we allow our manager discretion for compensation adjustments.

Lowly employees: you lying piece of%%)$^&&&@@

See how smart she is, she’s not lying to us…we just didn’t read the fine print and we didn’t make enough friends.

Good thing she is happy to help us leave USBank, actively encouraging us to leave